BRITAIN’S enormous benefits bill has once again been thrust to the top of the political news agenda.
Tory leader is today using their to buy cigarettes and booze, instead limiting them to just the essentials.
It could prove to be both a smart political move from the chief who is seeking to tap into frustration from workers that people on splash out on luxuries.
But it might also make economic sense if, as the Tories claim, this would help reduce the eye-watering amount of money the government is currently spending on welfare.
This year the country is set to splurge around £150billion on benefits – dwarfing the defence, education and prisons budget combined.
Such gargantuan spending levels have forced successive governments to push taxes to peacetime records – with likely to hike them yet again in next month’s Budget.
The PM did however acknowledge this week that the last two Budgets had whacked up taxes enormously, and that he needed to “”.
He could find it tricky though to cut spending if his notoriously reluctant Labour MPs oppose any meaningful spending restraint.
At least he has some good news to trumpet today though, having signalled he will at matches.
For 40 years booze has been prohibited during games to avoid fuelling drunken disorder – something the PM branded “unfair”.
While fans have welcomed the plan, chiefs are already lining up to criticise it on the grounds it will lead to hooliganism and stretch their already thin resources.
